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Duke Law students contributed thousands of hours of pro bono service during the 2025-2026 academic year through student group activities, pop-up clinics, and off-campus work — locally, nationally, and abroad.

Across the Law School, 291 students logged nearly 6,850 hours, not including clinic or externship hours, said Director of Pro Bono D.J. Dore. That includes more than 4,200 collective pro bono hours contributed by all teams in the 2026 1L and LLM Pro Bono Challenge, a yearlong competition that challenges first year and LLM students to support access to justice efforts.

Ten graduating students, who collectively completed more than 3,400 pro bono hours during their law school careers, were named 2026 Pro Bono All-Stars: Maame Adu JD/LLM ’26; Avery Allen JD ’26; Emily Bass JD ’26; Kacey Buercklin LLM ’26; Seimi Chu JD ’26; Caitlyn Leary JD/MPP ’26; Yuxi He LLM ’26; Sened Teklay LLM ’26; Max Tinter JD ’26; and Neven Vrbetic LLM ’26. 

"I'm incredibly proud of these All-Stars for their deep commitment to pro bono work and for stepping up to address critical unmet legal needs across complex issues such as human trafficking, criminal justice reform, immigration, and low-income housing,” Dore said.

“I feel truly fortunate to have worked with them and to have witnessed their growth during their time at Duke Law School. Each student has left an indelible mark.”

Bass tallied many of her pro bono hours serving as a facilitator with Duke Street Law, which develops and teaches legal curriculum through fun lessons to young people detained in the Durham County Youth Home, and representing three children in the child welfare system during her three years in the Durham County Guardian ad Litem program. 

“I love Guardian ad Litem,” Bass said. “You develop this amazing relationship with your kids, and it’s a great opportunity to actually write a court report and go to a hearing.” 

Eleven Duke Law students joined the program this year, which requires 40 hours of training and a time commitment of at least 20 hours annually.

Other pro bono activities and accomplishments at Duke Law include:

Backpage Remission Program for Trafficking Survivors

Over the 14 years of its existence, Backpage.com became the leading online forum for prostitution-related advertisements of sex trafficking victims, including children. After the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted its founders and seized the site, it used the company’s assets to create a $200 million fund for survivors; to receive compensation, claimants had to file a petition establishing proof they were trafficked on the site and detailing their financial losses tied to their exploitation. To assist in the petition process, the DOJ partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to create a Backpage Survivor Remission Network to connect survivors with pro bono representation. 

Initially composed of national law firms only, Duke was the first law school in the country to join the Network. In mid-January, Dore — who is one of North Carolina’s experts in legal remedies for trafficking survivors — accepted three cases as pro bono counsel and recruited nine students — five 1Ls, three 2Ls, and one LLM — to help put together their petitions before the March 31 filing deadline. With the clients located throughout the country, each case would require extensive investigation and consultations with outside experts, and Dore said he was upfront with the students about the time commitment and potentially upsetting material the work might involve. None backed out.

Paulina Mindlin JD ’27, one of the student volunteers, was already an expert investigator: Before entering law school, Mindlin spent five years helping prosecute online exploitation as a senior cybercrime investigative analyst in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

“Special victims' advocacy has always been my background and my passion,” said Mindlin, who plans to become a special victims' prosecutor. “This felt like a perfect opportunity to do what I came to law school for.” 

One of the most sobering aspects of the work was realizing that two of the clients, currently in their twenties, are not much older than the students helping them, she said. But despite initial hesitations, their clients began to open up about their painful pasts.

“Where we started versus where we ended up was so different,” Mindlin said. “One of the victims said, ‘You guys changed my life. This is the first time I've ever talked to anybody about this, and you made me feel so supported and empowered.’ It was so rewarding and meaningful to see how they were able to fight through it, and to see how they started to have control for the first time over what they experienced.”

Now that the filing deadline has passed, the Department of Justice is reviewing all petitions submitted by survivors, including the three petitions prepared by the Duke Law team, which together request significant compensation for their clients. “While each petition’s eligibility and compensation determination are ultimately up to the Remission Administrator, we strongly believe our clients deserve every penny,” Dore said.

“It’s truly a privilege to help these incredibly brave survivors rebuild their lives. We thank our clients for allowing us to tell their stories. These cases involved extremely sensitive facts but the team handled the work like seasoned legal professionals. Understandably, it takes a lot of patience and trauma-informed lawyering to build the trust and confidence of trafficking survivors because of what they've experienced. I’m really proud Duke Law is a part of this Network and of our students for stepping up to the challenge.”